EDRulebook: 6 Creating A Character

Our streets are filled with ruffians of every description. Some are worse than others, and grow to truly fearsome power. To those we give medals, in hopes that calling them heroes will make it so.
--King Varulus the Younger

A character in Earthdawn is similar to a character in a novel or a movie. The character is part of a story, interacts with other characters, villains, and monsters, and makes decisions that affect how the story turns out. The important difference between a character in a novel and your Earthdawn character is that you, the player, decide how your character views life, how he conducts himself around other people, what he is particularly good at; and you control his actions. Every Earthdawn character has certain basic Attributes, talents, and skills, but you give that character personality, flair, and realism. Without a unique personality, your character remains a mere collection of game statistics.

The personality you choose can make your character a hero of the legends of Earthdawn. Every player character possesses a specific outlook, set of skills, and a connection to the magic of the world that makes him an above-average, often outstanding member of his race and of the people who live in the world of Earthdawn. Player characters have an instinct for adventure, and the courage and personal integrity to follow that instinct. By behaving in extraordinary fashion, player characters become the heroes others admire, trust, and depend on. They become the legends that will head the renaissance of their world.

BUILDING A HERO

You know what roleplaying in Earthdawn involves. You have a feel for the history of the world and its races. You've read about another group of adventurers' travels and encounters in the province of Barsaive. Now it is time to create your own hero and find your character's place in this world. By defining the limits and potentials of a character, players can become a part of the legends of Earthdawn.

To create an Earthdawn character, you follow a series of ten steps. Each step is briefly described immediately below to demonstrate the general flow and process of creating a character, and then described in detail further on. For the most satisfactory results when creating a character, players and gamemasters should familiarize themselves with all the rules in this section and in the Disciplines, Talents, and Skills sections. Many decisions that must be made to create a character are affected by other decisions. For example, your choice of race affects your choice of Discipline, your choice of Discipline affects the talents available to your character, and so on. It's best to have all the facts going in, rather than being disappointed by the results of making ill-informed choices.

To begin, read through the condensed version of the steps and the sections mentioned above, then move on to the expanded explanations of each step. As soon as you've generated a few characters, you'll probably only need to refer to the condensed procedure and a few of the following tables to create exactly the character you want to play.

1. Choose A Discipline
To choose which Discipline your character will follow, see the Disciplines section, which includes a list of Disciplines and full descriptions for each. Your character's Discipline will determine his race, special abilities, talents, and way of viewing and interacting with the world. Take particular care in choosing a Discipline, so that you have the other options available to you for your character that you most want.

2. Choose A Race
To choose a race, review the Major Races of Barsaive section, beginning on page 38. If you have familiarized yourself with the recommended sections before creating your character, you will have already taken the race you want your character to be into consideration when you chose his or her Discipline. Many of the races have certain special abilities and modifiers (see the Racial Abilities Table, p. 54). If one or more of these seems important to the type of character you want to play, now is the time to alter your choice accordingly.

3. Generate Attributes
Earthdawn provides two methods for generating character Attributes. One method allows the player to purchase Attributes for his character (see Purchase Method); the other generates Attribute Values randomly . The purchasing system gives the players more control over what kind of character they create and provides better balance within the game, but the random dice-roll system has the potential to create more powerful and varied characters. The gamemaster decides which system the players will use to generate character Attributes.

While you are determining your character's Attributes, consult the Racial Modifiers Table and modify your character's Attributes accordingly. Then consult the Step/Action Dice Table on the same page and record the step and Action dice for each Attribute on the Character Record Sheet.

4. Determine Characteristics
Certain characteristics determine how characters function within the game, such as Defense Ratings, Armor Ratings, Death andUnconsciousness Ratings, and so on. These characteristics are determined wholly or in part by the character's Attribute values. Characteristic ratings appear in the Attribute Table.

5. Record Racial Abilities
Each of the races has special abilities. Note these on the Character Record Sheet.

6. Assign Talent Ranks
Assign ranks to the talents listed for your character's Discipline. Remember, the Discipline you choose determines which talents your character can learn (see Disciplines). Refer to your character's Discipline description again at this point. You have 8 Rank Points to distribute among your character's talents. For each point you assign to a specific talent, the character gains one rank in that talent. You cannot allocate more than 3 Rank Points to any one talent.

If your character is a magician, select his starting spells at this time. To acquire spells, magicians begin with a number of "purchasing points" equal to their Perception step. Circle 1 spells cost 1 point, and Circle 2 spells cost 2 points. First Circle characters cannot acquire spells higher than Circle 2.

7. Assign Skill Ranks
Select areas of knowledge for your character. You have 2 Rank Points to assign to Knowledge Skills. This gives your character two Knowledge Skills at Rank 1 or one at Rank 2.

Select an Artisan Skill (see Skills), giving it a Rank of 1.

Your character also speaks his or her racial language and the Dwarven tongue. Assign a Rank of 1 to the Read/Write Languages Skill for the Dwarven language.

8. Equip Your Character
Each character starts his adventuring life with 120 silver pieces. Turn to the Goods and Services section, and buy your character some gear. He probably won't be able to afford much equipment at the beginning, but browsing is allowed in Throal. Go ahead.

9. Flesh Out Your Character
Choose a few personality traits and answer some basic questions about your character to find out what he or she is really like. Make some fundamental philosophical and lifestyle choices.

10. Play The Game
Have fun, enjoy yourself, eat lots of pizza.

DETAILED CHARACTER CREATION

This section provides indepth explanations of the character creation rules, and also points out the considerations to keep in mind when making certain choices for your character. While taking you step by step through the actual character creation process outlined above, this section also describes how each aspect of your character is used in the game.

In an effort to make this book as immediately useful as possible, we repeat certain rules and concepts so that you can find them easily each time you need them.

CHARACTER RECORD SHEET

As you create your character, fill in the appropriate spaces on a Character Record Sheet. A blank copy is provided at this site. Make as many copies of the Character Record Sheet as you need.

In addition to the blank Character Record Sheet and a pen or pencil, you'll need another sheet of paper or two and four 6-sided dice.

1. CHOOSE A DISCIPLINE

The first step in creating an Earthdawn character is to choose that character's Discipline. This is the most important decision you will make about your character, for a Discipline is much more than a character's profession; it is a way of life. A character's Discipline also determines how he interacts with magic and how he can use magical energies to empower his talents. A Discipline colors the character's view of the world, gives him special abilities and restrictions, and defines much of what he is, in some cases even defining his race.

See theDisciplines section for full descriptions of the Disciplines available. Choose one, and write the name on the Discipline line near the top of your Character Record Sheet. Note any racial restrictions for your chosen Discipline on a separate sheet of paper. Certain races cannot follow some Disciplines; if you want to play a character of a particular race, choose a Discipline with that race in mind.

DISCIPLINES

Archer	Swordmaster
Beastmaster	Thief
Cavalryman	Troubadour
Elementalist	Warrior
Illusionist	Weaponsmith
Nethermancer	Wizard
Sky Raider

Directly below the Discipline line on the Character Record Sheet is a notation for "Circle." Earthdawn measures proficiency and expertise in a given Discipline in Circles: the higher the Circle a character reaches, the more proficient (and more powerful) that character becomes. Every player character begins at First Circle. Some day, if things go the character's way, he or she may reach Tenth Circle (or even higher!). We wish you luck. Write a 1 on the line after Circle.

Jill is very excited about creating her very own hero in Earthdawn. She bases her first decision on a personal preference; being a great animal-lover herself, she makes her character an animal-lover too, and chooses the Beastmaster Discipline. Because Jill also wants her character to be a race other than human, she checks the Beastmaster description to find out what racial restrictions apply. Jill discovers that as a Beastmaster, her character cannot be an obsidiman or a t'skrang. This leaves her with several other non-human choices for race. While she's looking at the Beastmaster description, Jill also notes that Toughness and Charisma are important Attributes for her character's Discipline.

2. CHOOSE A RACE

Once you select a Discipline, the next step is to choose your character's race. The races populating the world of Earthdawn are described in the Major Races of Barsaive section. Keep in mind that racial restrictions prevent certain races from choosing some Disciplines. For example, if you chose the Sky Raider Discipline, your character cannot be an obsidiman. Write your race choice on the Race line at the top of the Character Record Sheet.

A few races also have Attribute requirements (see the Racial Abilities Table). These requirements are most often minimum values that certain Attributes must meet in order for a character to be of that race. For example, in order for a character to be a troll, he must have Strength and Toughness Attribute Values of at least 11. Note these minimums on your separate sheet of paper, because this becomes important in the next step, Generate Attributes.

Amused by the possibilities she sees in playing a character who flies, Jill chooses the windling race for her character. She has now made two decisions about her character, and will be playing a windling Beastmaster. Jill consults the Racial Abilities Table and makes a note to remind herself that a windling has a maximum Strength Value of 11.